Monday, December 6, 2010

And the finalists are...

Your choices on where we poll this week are:

-Arizona. This is one of the few states where Obama has any chance of winning one he lost in 2008, and this may be the best opportunity Democrats have for picking up a Senate seat other than Nevada and Massachusetts.

-Florida. We've already polled on Bill Nelson several times looking toward 2012- his approvals aren't great but it's partially because Democrats don't love him that much. He actually has higher than usual appeal to Republicans and independents and as a result has done decently well against the hypothetical opponents we've tested. No harm in taking another look at his prospects though and a first look at how Obama does against named Republicans in the state.

-Nebraska. We already have a pretty good idea that Ben Nelson is in deep, deep trouble but no hurt in getting another set of eyes on it. We can also look at Obama's prospects for winning Omaha again. I'll give up Omaha for Obama if I can have it for UNC's baseball team but I guess it doesn't work that way.

-New Jersey. Tons of polling now makes it clear that Robert Menendez isn't very popular. The question is whether that's 'we don't like you but we'll vote for you over a Republican anyway' unpopularity or if it's 'we don't like you and we're going to put you out of office' unpopularity. Time to put some names up against him.

-Ohio. Potentially close Senate race that we know little about at this point and still one of the biggest Presidential states for sure.

-Pennsylvania. Same as Ohio.

-Texas. A couple questions to ponder here- 1) is this competitive as as an open seat and 2) just how susceptible is Kay Bailey Hutchison to a Tea Party challenge. One thing I'm pretty confident about is Hutchison being invincible in a general election.

-Wisconsin. This state went so bad for Dems this year I'm curious about Obama's prospects as well as a) Herb Kohl's or b) what this would look like with Russ Feingold running for an open seat. Was Feingold's defeat this year more about Feingold or more about climate issues beyond Feingold's control?

At any rate voting is open until Thursday morning and we'll do the top two.

Wisconsin supposedly had one of the biggest "enthusiasm gaps" of 2010, but if it was a matter of the entire electorate moving towards the Republicans, Obama might have some serious problems.

That and I want Feingold back. =(

Also, while Ohio is highly interesting as a swing presidential state, I think Brown and Obama's futures are pretty well tied together. I can't see Obama winning the state and Brown losing, or vice-versa. But hey, maybe it'll have some surprising results.

Since the other ones seem close, I would be interested in seeing if Nelson is as dead in the water as is assumed. I'm guessing yeah.

Ohio might not see the same results for Senator and President. Look how it performed in this extremely Republican-leaning year - Strickland came very close to winning after all, while Fisher got blown out. If Obama were to run a solid campaign or have a deeply unpopular opponent like Palin while Brown did a tank job like the Jets on Monday Night Football this week, they could easily see very different results. I think Ohio is very much a state where the campaign is key.